Re: Going Back to Liquid from MC

This is a nice discussion on what people expect from a NLE(?) editor. It is obvious that we are not all the same kind of users. This is a mixture of Pro's, semi-Pro's, amateurs. And for the last group (I belong to), there is a whole bunch of different types of users. I know of some that work with a kind of script, shooting scenes which they have thought of in advance.

For me, I shoot what comes before my camera. That is a complete dis-order of scenes. Good nice scenes, bad scenes (lot of distortion, movement, out of focus etc.).

With en edit program like Studio, you start reorganising things so that the first output does not look like a complete chaos. In fact, I remember that Studio offered an automatic scene composer of what was captured.

In Liquid things were more complicated. It was already possible to do things that looked professional. But still, I'm an amateur.

The Pro world (for MC) looks completely different to the editor, I believe. They shoot according to plans, they compose edited material to pre-written scripts. They often use more than one camera, even with different format. So their needs are so different from my basic editing that it is a never ending discussion.

So my approach has changed. I now look more to what other people have made, special effects and, if I can use these in my simple edited movie, I use them. And now people who see my movies, ask me: "how did you do that? It looks a little bit professional". Thanks to MC, a whole bunch of tutorial makers and, sometimes, a movie in YouTube.

Re: Going Back to Liquid from MC

One of the key tasks in editing (anything more than a very simple job) is organising your shots.

With MC while capturing you can use the F1-F2 keys to mark in's and outs that from subclips. You can even type the name of that subclip while capturing. The rest of the F keys are normally mapped as coloured locators and these to can be used while capturing. And if capturing DV or HDV content (via firewire) you can use scene detection to add locators and or subclip. (this can also be applied to a master clip after capture)

These are just a few ways to help organise the shots. But the next step would be logging. Looking through the content and creating sub clips of the required shots and possibly moving them to new bins that help organise the content.

A little time spent doing this reaps time saved in the creative process (not having to dig through long master clips to find that shot)

Many editors never sub clip and work just from master clips and never sub sequence and re use or re-order subsequences.

So bins and folders are a valuable tool to editors and working practices have been built on them. MC wouldn't be MC if it didn't have bins. (Also a Bin is an explorer/finder object/file) so can be used to easily move clips or sequences, even effects, from one system to another)

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Re: Going Back to Liquid from MC

Subsequence? Now that's a very useful idea. Thanks! Then use subsequences in other projects. Great tip about the adding locators during capture too. Something similar I do to that while shooting is to switch to camera bars for a few seconds immediately after shooting an important scene. It makes it easy to find a clip while scrubbing rapidly. In effect, I'm adding a locator while shooting.

Re: Going Back to Liquid from MC

You can subsequence by dragging the clip icon above and to the right of the record monitor or alt drag the window to a bin.

Don't forget double clicking a subsequence will load it into the timeline and record monitor but you can drag a sub sequence to the source monitor and then edit it into a different timeline as you would a normal clip except that the sequence structure is maintained and edited over. really cool.

Now if we had reference sequences like DS it would be even better!

ACI Moderator. I'm not employed by Avid or work for them. I just do this in my spare time. Normally using the current Media Composer version on My...
[view my complete system specs]

Re: Going Back to Liquid from MC

In liquid you just had to couble click the clip to do motion effects- in MC you have to install a effect (3d blend) and if you want another one, it removes the 3d one.

ALT+drag a second effect to add it without removing the effects that are already there.

Christopher Allen:

How do you change the width of the tracks?

ALT+l to make them bigger and ALT+k to make them smaller.

Christopher Allen:

Why doesn't the sequence box stay where I want it?

Which one is the "sequence box"?

Christopher Allen:

Why does it turn off tracks? I've had a few times when I exported it and only one or two tracks were there.

You can set it up to export all the tracks, or only the tracks that are active. If you choose the second option, and some of your tracks are turned off, you won't get them in the export.

Christopher Allen:

How do you do fades on the tracks? I see the line and can't do anythign with it.

To adjust the audio using the line on the audio clip, you have to add at least one keyframe. To fade you'll need two keyframes.

I don't have any answer for the rest. It'd be nice if we had background rendering and universal import/export and whatever else. There's a feature request forum if you'd like to let them know what you want to see in the future.

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who only consider the price are this man's lawful prey." - John Ruskin (1819-1900)